Category: #edchat

A fishy business model…

The next time you bump into Graham Brown-Martin, ask him to tell you about what’s happening in Africa with regard to commercially-focused education interests. He’s got some fairly shocking insights to what’s going on and why… The boardroom purpose of an organisation fundamentally dictates what that organisation does and the compromises it will be willing to…
Silo

I caught Brian Lamb talking about learning platform silos at this Disruptive Media Learning Lab event recently. It’s time to reclaim your domain…
An oppressive education

To love learning. Is this not the very purpose of life? But this is the stuff you need to know — just get on with knowing it. My worry is that the purpose of our current system is not to engender a love of learning (and the enjoyment of the hard work that it requires) — but the gaining…
Adopt Technology in Education?

Is it really a choice? I don’t think so. How you adopt technology in education? Well, that’s quite another thing…
TIDE at 50

A beach is a place of wonder – I’m never happier than when on a beach. An endless supply of creative materials, with a landscape that continually changes. Task #1 – let’s find out what the tide is doing, and how fast it’s doing it… If you haven’t come across the TIDE podcast, it’s well…
Notice and wonder

Wondering, always wondering. The more I wonder, the more I notice. The more I notice, the more I wonder…
Credentials big and small…

Every time I find myself on a beach, I’ll be looking for a pebble that catches my eye. I’ll pick a few contenders, and over the course of a two week holiday will end up with maybe 100 pebbles. At the end of the holiday, I’ll take maybe two or three home. I have attached…
The Pi-clopedia

I don’t know about you but I’ve been tinkering in my man-shed. Curiosity-driven, soldering iron out, YouTube at the ready. The spirit of McGyver runs deep through my veins, and given enough time there is nothing I cannot make. The Raspberry Pi? It’s a thing of beauty. Now then what shall I make it do?…
Open Badges (P.S. there’s data inside…)

Open Badges seem so simple, don’t they? But wait – don’t make assumptions – ask questions! They’ve got stuff inside. Data. Authenticated data. But the big news? – you can take them with you because they’re built on an open standard. They can be connected together to form a learning pathway. The data structure inside the…
A subjunctive mood…

Primary schools in the UK have gone grammar mad. Essentially, although a kid may be dynamite in other areas, they can be labelled “below age related expectations”. What does that even mean? In actual fact, we are natural grammarians. Kids sponge-brains can soak up new languages amazingly quickly, without any formal learning. It seems we are…
A teacher’s mission

This Will Richardson talk really resonated with me. He quotes Dewey. You should really watch it.
Let’s just badge everything

This week, the team at the University of Southampton organised an excellent Open Badge conference, which I really enjoyed taking part in. Doug Belshaw (his slides are here) and Carla Casilli were keynoting. “Let’s just badge everything” is probably not the best strategy in getting up and running with micro-credentials. Here are two questions worth…